This reminds me of that "Three Minutes in Italy" campaign from San Pellegrino where you control a robot on the streets of Sicily from anywhere in the world.

But here, you control a person outfitted with audio video tech who will do what you ask him to do so you can tour Melbourne before you actually go - vicariously taking in the sites and sounds you want to experience.

What if a brand like Pepsi let you, for instance, "attend" the Super Bowl? Or Red Bull brought you on its next crazy stunt - with you in control of the show?

People get worked up over "real time marketing" (basically brands using Twitter to comment on televised events as they happen).

Wouldn't this kind of thing take it to a much cooler place - bringing you to the televised event, rather than just consuming tweets about it?

It's looking like Chipotle has scored big with a new mobile campaign centered on YouTube video and mobile game.

As Venture Beat reports, Chipotle and Moonbot Studios produced an animated film and mobile game as part of its overall "Food with Integrity" campaign.

Here's the thing: As a branding initiative, it's generating boffo results. In its first two weeks, the YouTube video saw 6.5 million views. And within four days of the mobile game's release on the App Store, it was downloaded 250,000 times, making it the top 15 free iOS apps in the U.S.

According to VentureBeat, with success like this, other brands will take notice and start creating their own branded games.

But as I write in my book THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, this has been going on for some time, as I take an in-depth look at how Coca-Cola, Burger King, Axe, Dove a growing number of major B2C (and B2B) brands have been doing some very serious business with branded games.

And while VentureBeat credits the fact that there's no overt selling in the Chipotle game, which is being praised for its production values, I think the game is more powerful than just that. In my view, the reason it was worth developing in the first place is because it delivers on one of the main precepts I put forth for creating successful branded games.

Yes, there's the constant presence of the Chipotle icon on the phone (as VP points out). But far more importantly, the game play, which entails finding, protecting and delivering wholesome food to people, ties directly the the Chipotle value proposition, reinforcing its brand positioning every time someone plays it.

On the heels of Cyrus's vivid gyrations at the MTV VMAs late last month, the 'Worst Twerk Fail Ever' video took the Internets by storm, cementing the term in the American consciousness forever.

But, as Jimmy Kimmel revealed September 10, the video was one of his famous pranks. And its star, one Caitlin Heller, wasn't really a victim at all. In fact, she wasn't Caitlin Heller at all.

Instead, she is Daphne Avalon, a professional stunt woman who - as we'll he hear in our special audio interview - was lucky to have friends who didn't spill the secret. And who, from an early age, demonstrated she had stunt work in her DNA.

Note to Warner Bros: If the rumors about 'Man of Steel 2' featuring not just Ben Affleck as Batman but also a yet-to-be-cast Wonder Woman are true - Avalon at least deserves an audition.

As you'll hear, the likeness to the "Amazing Amazon" is something she's heard before.

In the event you're one of the four people who haven't yet experienced the offensively funny new viral video from Poo Pourri - watch above (just since we first posted about this video's official launch yesterday, views are already closing in on 1 million - with Buzzfeed finding some especially choice words for the effort).

Then get ready to hear directly from the woman behind the project: Poo Pourri Founder & CEO Suzy Batiz - a figure who seems like the picture perfect American Success Story, and perhaps a national treasure, for helping stop one of the most powerful forms of embarrassment around.

In 2007, Suzy formulated her unique "spray before you go" bathroom spray. Poo Pourri was born - and racked up $1 million in sales its first year. It is now generating over $15 million in sales per year.

In this exclusive audio interview, I talk to Batiz just before this project was launched. She had come to me to look for ways to launch a viral sensation and help take the already successful brand to the next level by expanding upon its core audience and starting a conversation around the brand and its offerings.

Here, we talk about the brand, and its objectives with this initiative, which eventually led to bringing Jeffrey Harmon and his team - which had won widespread acclaim for its work with Orabrush – into Poo Pourri's orbit. The result is this video (for much more on this back story, click here).

As you'll see, Batiz is one very cool marketer who definitely knows her, well you get the picture.

For far too many B2B marketers, there's a view that never the two should meet. But as I write in my book THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, it's critical that B2B marketers realize business people are just that - people. And their exposure to B2C marketing approaches in their personal lives sets expectations for B2B marketing, whether B2B marketers like it or not.

Over the last few months, LoopNet has launched an integrated campaign that's predicated on a simple, yet powerful message: If your commercial listings aren't advertised on LoopNet, they may as well be invisible. That's because only LoopNet drives traffic to commercial real estate listings like literally no other option can.

Print, direct mail and online advertising developed by has articulated this theme in compelling, brand consistent fashion.

So when LoopNet decided to fete the luminaries of Los Angeles commercial real estate, we got to thinking: What if we took our message and super-sized it? What if we used a full-motion, building-size canvass to drive home the LoopNet value proposition in an amazing new way?

I asked him straight up: "Do you think you can make a building in downtown LA go invisible?" He thought about it, and then said: "Yes, I think we can do that."

The concept began gaining traction, and eventually became LA Traffic Jam, Presented by LoopNet - a spectacular, VIP event featuring a private concert by TRAIN ("Drive-by") and our 3D projection experience.

Fans, attendees and participants could join the conversation via mobile & online at the hashtag #looptrafficjam.

And video of the projection was placed on a special landing page and on YouTube. The client even decided to give viewers the ability to share the video via social media for the chance to win a $1250 Fender guitar signed by the band.

The event was last Thursday night - and it was a blast. Testament to a client who thrives on innovation and embraces a decidedly B2C approach to blockbuster B2B campaigns.

There's a making-of video in the works that I'll share when it's ready, along with more details of what worked, and what didn't, as client and team analysis comes in.

In the meantime, give it a view - and enter for your own chance to win that signed guitar.

That elephant: Kony 2012. With 96.4 million views, it is by far the most viral video of the year, if not ever. But we aren't covering cause related virals here. This list is strictly brand territory. And on that front, while many of our picks were indeed viral sensations, we're not choosing them based on views. Rather, it's a list of our favorites here at GEN WOW.

Hey, it's a personal thing. Let us know if you agree, or if not, what virals would make your list.

We’ve all had an idea that we want to turn into a business. Some of us have transformed that idea into action and created a business. Few of us were able to make that idea into an actual profitable business. If you have a great product or service how do people find out about it? How do you present your idea/product/service/company to potential buyers and decision makers? Let’s take a lesson from DollarShaveClub.com and their video that blew up the internets and launched their idea into a successful business.

ESTABLISH BRAND & CATEGORY
The first ten seconds of your video are the most important. Mike tells us what Dollar Shave club is and what they do in the first 10 seconds. “What is Dollar Shave Club.com? Well, for a dollar a month we’ll send you high quality razors right to your door.
Companies need to tell people who they are and what they do, and they have to do it quickly. Tell people the name of your company and what kind of industry you are in. It’s not even 10 seconds and Mike says the name of the company twice. Since he does this in such an interesting way, you want to watch the whole video. Mike has us eating out of the palm of his hand.

VALUE PROPOSITION
Right after Mike tells us about his company and what they do, he informs us that his blades are, “F**king Great!” Look at the title of the YouTube video and what do you see? The name of the company and the value they bring - “DollarShaveClub.com - Our Blades are F**king Great.” It also helps that the title of the video is a catchy one.

DSC beats their competitors on price. Only a dollar a month. There are five values that will separate your companys’ products for the rest. Faster, Stronger, Cheaper, Better, Easier. Know the value of your product or service and tell people about it. Explain why they should choose your products over the hundreds of other choices out there. People need a reason to purchase your product or service

USE HUMOR
Making someone laugh is one of the quickest way to build trust. Once you have their trust your power to influence them increases ten fold. Think of your personal life when someone has made you laugh. Don’t you love being around people like that? People will remember your message a lot better if you can make them laugh while you deliver your message. Make it your goal to make someone laugh everyday.

BE DIFFERENT
We live in a crowded busy world with millions of brands crying out for everyone’s attention. You need to be different to stick out because if you’re the same nobody listens to you. Attention is one of the world’s scarcest resources and the decision-makers’ attention is something companies are willing to spend billions of dollars to buy. The worst thing your video could be is boring. Boring Sucks. Boring always leads to failure. Be interesting instead.

I’ve done a couple jobs for some smaller companies where they wanted a “safe” video. They didn’t want to get criticized or offend anybody. This resulted in a completely boring and forgettable video. Naturally criticisms comes to those who stand out, but don’t be afraid of it. Grab criticism by the horns and hump it into submission. Being safe is risky. It’s safer to be risky.

Be Different

* Being different is about standing out in a positive, productive manner that can sustain itself over time. Dennis Rodman was different but not in a good way. Sure he drew attention to himself but where is he now? His play-dough like hair was more like a desperate cry for attention, which made it hard for anyone to take him serious. Don’t be so different that it makes you look like an attention starved five year old. Be original.

TAKEAWAY
DSC had 12,000 people sign up in the first 48 hours from when that video launched. DSC could would not have this kind of success fifteen years ago. The resources weren't there yet. We live in a great time where the internet has eliminated our excuses. We can no longer use the phrases, “I don’t know how” or “I don’t know who” or “I don’t have enough money.” DSC made this video for under $5,000! Gone are the days where you need tens of thousands of dollars to produce a commercial and to have millions of people see it. YouTube has made distribution free so anyone in the world can watch your video anytime they want. YouTube has changed the way we advertise, you weren’t forced to watch this video, you wanted to watch this video and that’s why it's so successful. Good advertising is entertaining. DSC has given us a great case study to learn from. Now get out there and make videos that are F**king Great!

]]>http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2012/08/27/viral-video-case-study-of-dollar-shave-club-what-we-can-learn/feed/3Wielding Influence: 5 Problems and 6 Solutionshttp://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2012/07/09/wielding-influence-5-problems-and-6-solutions/
http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2012/07/09/wielding-influence-5-problems-and-6-solutions/#commentsMon, 09 Jul 2012 11:32:45 +0000Matt Rosenberghttp://blogs.imediaconnection.com/?p=17048... Read more]]>Like “engagement,” the word “influence” in marketing means so many things that it’s at risk of meaning nothing. It can be about endorsement, or content sharing, it can be interchangeable with “viral strategy,” it can mean growing a fan base as part of a CRM strategy… and it is almost always challenging to scale. We have to get past the jargon and develop a realistic understanding of the social mechanisms marketers can legitimately use and expect to show results.

Endorsement has been with us for many years. We wanted to be cool like Humphrey Bogart, so Resistol paid him to appear in their ad for his signature fedora. Britney Spears dancing about soda, Jennifer Lopez implausibly driving a Fiat, and so many more. Celebrities are totems that represent some specific qualities that people may aspire to. They are also expensive. So when the mechanisms developed to connect measurably with our peers, advertisers lifted the endorsement model and got busy looking for the opinion-shapers among us.

But there are a number of problems with the way “influence” has been leveraged for marketing. A key driver of this type of program is cost: it’s cheap. But anything cheap means that you pay the price elsewhere. To wit:

Authentic influence is tough to scale. It takes an awful lot of me or you to add up to the reach of one spangle on Britney’s jeans.

Endorsement isn’t authentic. When advertisers pay, with a media buy or free product, for an endorsement the audience may discount the credibility of the endorser. Early on, companies tried giving away product to bloggers with the implied graft of good-review-means-more-free-product, which caused the FTC to regulate the practice and which made people realize that a mommy blogger shilling detergent is the same sellout that Lou Reed became trading on his indie cred to hawk scooters.

Influence doesn’t keep forever. It’s like take-out French fries – the farther you get from the source, the mushier it becomes. When you try to create scale by syndicating a blogger’s content through advertising, there is no influence left, only content. Content is valuable on its own merits, but we must recognize that its author is only reliably credible to folks with whom they have established credibility and not to people meeting them for the first time. It’s much easier to spread a message between people who are close to each other (in terms of their relationships) than distant from each other. The credibility that travels with the content is that of the sharer, and they may attach their own message.

Influence is unpredictable. In a landmark 2009 study, social scientist Duncan Watts and his co-authors showed that while content links are spread by popular people, it is not possible to predict which people will spread what content.

Influence metrics are often misleading. Klout tells me that Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore influences me. He is the face of Mashable on Twitter. His tweets are essentially a rolling table of contents of Mashable headlines. He narrowly influences my content consumption, not my broad lifestyle.

Our relationships in all parts of our lives are complex and inconsistent. Our interactions, even mediated by social platforms, are a swirling matrix of verbal and non-verbal cues. We assert and back off topics and opinions very differently with different people, which is particularly difficult to accommodate with one-to-many social platforms.

We follow or friend people not because we believe everything they tell us or because we want to be more like them in all ways but because there are certain things we trust them for. I follow @bryanfuhr on Twitter and I am highly likely to pay attention to what he writes about marketing but nothing he writes about French cuisine will make me consider eating snails.

Instead of banking on the myth of influence, we should think more practically about how we can work inside social mechanisms – platforms and software – that enable consumers to find, share and enjoy content in ways that accrue to our benefit as marketers. While influence doesn’t scale, content often does.

Content carries value when it is authentic, relevant, useful/entertaining, and, ideally, at some degree of distance from overt commercial interests (sponsored/gifted by a brand, not hammering a brand message). Here are some things to think about.

Take care who makes it. Content should be created by people who are authoritative, passionate, have a history of making things people like, and are trusted by a reasonably large audience. Their immediate audience will gain the most from the content. Some of the audience will share it to their networks, and the brand will almost certainly need to promote it through paid methods. The former is better than the latter, but you can’t rely on sharing from the source. There is a spectrum between I Trust You and I See You — we have to run that spectrum.

PR departments and ad agencies are generally lousy at making content (with a few notable exceptions). Don’t outsource editorial-style content creation to them. It will smell like marketing and undermine your goals. Real people who care about real things make real content. The best, like this promo for Playstation’s Video Store, doesn’t feel like advertising but as a gift from Sony – and the content creator treats their sponsor that way. You don’t have to know the creator to love the content.

You can’t predict who will spread it. So put it in front of as many people as possible. According to that 2009 Duncan Watts study, “word-of-mouth diffusion can only be harnessed reliably by targeting large numbers of potential influencers, thereby capturing average effects.” Make sure you’re delivering it in ways that social software can easily handle.

Understand you’re still making advertising. Just a different sort. People will like it if it’s good. If people consume the content only through a paid introduction, that’s not a failure. If they share, it’s a bonus. If the shares take on a life of their own, it’s a lightning strike of a win. You can control paid; you can’t force earned.

Viral is not a strategy: it’s an outcome. And while it’s a good outcome, if success depends on getting a jillion organic views, you’re setting up expectations that aren’t reasonable. Sharing of the sort that “goes viral” is so unpredictable the most respected scientists don’t understand it. Some of the most “viral” campaigns had media agencies goosing YouTube view numbers with very large media budgets.

Always be learning. The nature of a brand’s positioning and product give it permission to make certain kinds of content on a certain range of topics. Experimentation will lead to an understanding of what kind of content most resonates with each segment of your audience. Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Sounds simple, but this is rarely the filter for marketing creative.

There’s too much emphasis on using influence to gain mindshare. The truth is: great ideas resonate. Instead of making your brand dependent on the influence of others, brands that think about what they can do to move people and then do those things in sharable ways themselves become the only influencers that matter.

NOTE: This post, slightly edited, first appeared on the 140Proof blog.

If you would like to be influenced by me in the future, please follow me on Twitter at @CanonFodder.

]]>http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2012/07/09/wielding-influence-5-problems-and-6-solutions/feed/1Pinterest Is Not For Friends (Updated)http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2012/02/10/pinterest-is-not-for-friends/
http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2012/02/10/pinterest-is-not-for-friends/#commentsFri, 10 Feb 2012 14:42:51 +0000Adam Broitmanhttp://blogs.imediaconnection.com/?p=13239I was chatting with the amazing Rebecca Coleman yesterday about the influx of activity from Pinterest. Each of us have been using the service for some time, but all of a sudden we each started receiving an influx of new friend requests.

Why is this happening?

I cannot quantify every reason for this, but one is most certainly the social, viral coefficient--a concept most of you are familiar with. We have seen this effect in the past on Twitter and Facebook, but in the case of Pinterest, I believe the viral coefficient is being triggered by people in a way that is not necessarily aligned with the vision of the site. Furthermore, I believe that that the staggering increase in traffic will dwindle after the current swell is complete. The traffic decrease will be due to the way in which people are "mass friending" one another without acknowledging what the point of the site actually is (I do of course believe that Pinterest will be very successful and the traffic will pick up again as it is a great site).

Why this will happen?

We have reached a new stage in the progression of social technology. Now that the generic social infrastructure for the web is firmly installed things are starting to get exciting. Social discovery through media is becoming a new way for people to connect, and valuable social discovery can only occur through meaningful content curation.

Social discovery is not about your friends, it is about your interests

I have been receiving friend requests from the usual suspects. The same people that I am friends with on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and so forth. I love each one of these people, but do I really need to be friends with the same people on Pinterest? Where is the value add in "re-friending" people on a new network?

The beautiful thing about the new wave of social media sites is meeting new people who share the same interests

So what Adam, why are you writing this post?

My motivation for this post is twofold:

I want to let people know, if you have requested to be my friend on Pinterest and I have not reciprocated, it is not because I don't like you and it does not mean I will never friend you.

I am experimenting with meeting people purely through content, not prior relationships. If we are meant to be valuable friends on Pinterest (and not just a notch on each others social bed posts) we will meet via a photo, product or random image

I want to get brand strategists thinking about the essence of social content sharing before jumping on the bandwagon with no thought of how to best add value.

The bottom line is, you cannot simply repurpose what you are doing on Facebook and assume people will care.

Now that we have over thought something that is meant to be fun we can get back to having fun. Happy Pinning!

]]>http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2012/02/10/pinterest-is-not-for-friends/feed/7How Viral Is Your Brand's Facebook Campaign?http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2011/11/08/how-viral-is-your-brands-facebook-campaign/
http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2011/11/08/how-viral-is-your-brands-facebook-campaign/#commentsTue, 08 Nov 2011 18:30:13 +0000John Newellhttp://blogs.imediaconnection.com/?p=11072... Read more]]>An undeniably important facet of a successful campaign is a great Facebook Page. Knowing what kind of posts work best and knowing how to read and interpret the information provided by Facebook Insights will help your marketing team analyze its work, record progress and adjust your social media marketing campaign accordingly to create the largest impact possible.

Facebook recently re-vamped the Insights feature, adding a critical facet called Virality. Facebook defines Virality as “the percentage of people who have created a story from your Page post out of the total number of unique people who have seen it.”

After liking, commenting on, or sharing your post a user makes that interaction stream to their friends Newsfeed. According to Facebook, the average user has 130 friends and that means a lot of potential new customers will see your content. Virality represents all users who advertised your page in that fashion.

I used the Virality data from a social media campaign that we recently launched for a AAA video game title to better understand what types of posts are viral. I studied each post over the course of a month and placed them into five categories...

Question – Ask a question to initiate feedback through a comment, like, or share

Action – Tell the user to complete an action, e.g. “Like this Post,” or “share with your friends”

Media – Embedding a video, picture, or song into the post

Link – Using a link as a post. The link can lead you to somewhere within or outside of Facebook

Informative – Posting information about your product or service

The graph below shows the relationship between type of post (Question, Action, Media, Link, Informative) and the Virality it possesses. The posts are arranged from least Viral on the left to most Viral on the right.

Look at the lower Virality rated posts on the left hand side of the graph. You can see that Link and Informative posts almost all sit on the left side. In fact, all of the Informative posts and all but three of the Link posts sit below the average Virality of .40%.

Now, let’s examine the higher Virality-rated posts on the right side of the graph. Question and Action posts make up the majority of the highest Virality posts. All of the Question and Action posts sit above the average Virality rating of .40%

Media posts have the largest variation of Virality rating. They make up the highest and lowest valued posts and the rest of them are pretty evenly spread. I examined the content of each Media post again and found that the four Media posts on the right side of the graph also asked a Question or called for Action while the Media posts on the left side were simply informative.

Now that we know what types of post are most Viral, let’s talk about strategies to make those posts effective.

Question: The question you ask needs to be simple and direct. What do you think? Should this. . .? How do you feel? These questions usually yield a response that is opinion- and/or emotion-oriented. People want to talk about their opinions and feelings and if you can generate a question that asks those things of them then it will be a good post. Also, consider that an answer to your post doesn’t necessarily need to be a comment. “Like” is commonly used as “yes” for an answer. Asking a question that will likely yield a yes response is also a good route for a Question post.

Action: These posts call to action but let’s face it . . . People are lazy and even more so when it comes to the Internet. If you are going beyond asking someone to Like, Comment, or Share then you need to make the task simple (or have good incentives). Spending extra time to interact with users who follow through on your Action posts will benefit you by driving them to participate more heavily in the future and create interest in all users who note that interaction.

Media: Media posts can be your power house. Use them sparingly as they take up more room on Newsfeed and can clutter it easily. Media posts in conjunction with Action and Question posts are most effective. Consider generating buzz prior to a Media posts but utilizing Action and Question posts. “We are releasing a video sneak preview of our new product in one week, who’s excited to see it?!”

Link & Informative: These types of posts are inevitable to some extent. Sometimes you need to convey information to your audience. Whenever possible, try to change Link & Informative posts to Question or Action posts. Example: “Our New Game launches in one week!” Boring, right? You could post “It’s almost time! Only one week until the new game is available, are you going to camp out for the release?” and you will likely get a much greater response.

I hope this information is useful in helping your brand create a more successful marketing campaign and reach a larger audience in the Facebook Realm. Understanding what type of posts are Viral and the ideas for making those posts effective will give your marketing team a head start. Continuing to monitor the Virality of your posts will keep you ahead of the game. Make sure to keep your posts consistent, stay true to your brand, and have fun because it will be conveyed in your work and compel people with the urge to promote your message.

Here’s a stat…. According to B2B Magazine,more than 23% of B2B buyers are discussing products and services with their peers via social media. In fact, online recommendations are increasingly one of the most effective methods for getting new customers and leads. And, you are more likely to look at a product or service that someone has recommended to you.

I recently had the pleasure of moderating an online roundtable discussion entitled Social Media and Social Marketing Across the Funnel. I gathered together a few of the industry’s best— Carlos Hidalgo from The Annuitas Group, Kathleen Schaub of TrellisOne, and Mathieu Hannouz of Neolane— to talk about social media and the overall importance of integrating it into B2B marketing efforts.

We looked at:

What is the difference between social media and social marketing?

Why is social media and social marketing so critical for B2B organizations?

What are the key considerations for using social media and social marketing at various stages within the funnel?

What’s working today for B2B organizations using social media?

In this lively session, we uncovered that many companies’ social marketing efforts continue to be disjointed and lack integration into broader sales and branding campaigns.

One of the key discussion points centered around the need for B2B marketers to take a step back and think about their brand’s social media efforts… Are they engaging and interactive, like a casual conversation with a friend? Or are they just throwing out statements and screaming “BUY NOW” over and over?

The participants agreed: How a brand engages in dialogue with a customer or prospect over social media says a lot about how that relationship will evolve – or not – over time.

We concluded that B2B marketers are struggling today because they don’t know how to get from the basics of using social media to employing true social marketing strategies and techniques.

That progression can start by examining what messages and offers are working across the various stages of the sales funnel and ensuring key messages are consistently reinforced across multiple communications channels. Remember, social marketing is a strategy, not a tactic!

Think about what social marketing really is… It’s people talking, sharing ideas and having conversations. It gets to the core of what we really are as humans, social creatures that share a bond through communicating. Social media is simply another vehicle for those conversations.

One of our panelists aptly summed it up as this: “The last thing you should be worried about is pushing your product or service over social media. Build the relationship first…You don't ask in the first meeting, ‘Will you marry me?’… You ask ‘Can I buy you a drink?’” And take it from there. Eureka!

While the discussion about the value of social marketing in B2B organizations is still evolving, its clear that by integrating it within an organization’s cross-channel marketing mix, and understanding its impact on the customer lifecyle, will ultimately have a positive impact on a brand’s relationship with its customers.

]]>http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2011/09/02/buy-them-a-drink-first%e2%80%a6/feed/0Move Over, Mustafa: There's A New 'Old Spice' Guy In Town (Video)http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2011/07/20/8655/
http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2011/07/20/8655/#commentsThu, 21 Jul 2011 01:05:28 +0000Rick Mathiesonhttp://blogs.imediaconnection.com/?p=8655Isaiah Mustafa can move on over. Old Spice has a new (albeit old) guy now.

And he's got an all-too-familiar golden mane.

That's right, 80's icon Fabio - he of the Harlequin novels of yore - is the new star of new TV and print advertising, as well as a new OldSpiceGuyFabio YouTube Channel.

Look for much new social media fun from Weiden+Kennedy Portland to follow. Already, press kits are coming with faux personalized videos dedicated to recipients (here's one a reporter at Creativity received).

Still, Mustafa was an unknown actor Old Spice made into a star (and, it can be argued, vice versa). Can a well-known, B-list celebrity bring an aura of hipness to the brand along the same equation?

Nothing against Fabio - he just scored big time. But Mustafa really did bring something for which men can aspire and women admire.

In W+K's able hands, I think this will probably be something different, and just as awesome, in its own way, as the original.

But what's your take? Does this new effort have a fresh, cool fragrance?

]]>http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2011/07/20/8655/feed/0What it means to "go viral"http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2011/06/01/what-it-means-to-go-viral/
http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2011/06/01/what-it-means-to-go-viral/#commentsWed, 01 Jun 2011 23:59:31 +0000Judy Popkyhttp://blogs.imediaconnection.com/?p=7948If you're on Facebook (and who isn't, really?), you probably have already seen this campaign for Intel.

http://www.intel.com/museumofme/r/index.htm

Not only is it an awesome execution of technical prowess, but it's also an instantly viral campaign. I doubt when the developers set out on this mission, their task was to "make something go viral." Yet, how many times do we hear that we should create a "viral campaign."

In this focus group of one, no such thing exists. Something goes viral because it's cool, it's trendy, it's topical, it's fun or any one of a number of other good reasons... but... never because the client said so. In fact, I believe that the harder we try to be viral, the worse the campaign gets.

I'd love to see the analytics on this app (it has 170,000+ likes and over 83,000 "shares"). I saw it yesterday -- pretty sure that's when it launched. I've seen it no less than 20 times since I clicked on it, watched in awe and forwarded to everyone in my company.

Bottom line, worry less about making it viral and more about making it engaging, interesting and entertaining.

Orabrush has now officially passed Sims and Apple to become the second most subscribed YouTube Channel. And last, Orabrush is launching an interactive video featuring Morgan the Dirty Tongue that enables users to make Morgan dance using the numerical keys on their keyboards. If you ask Salar Kamangar, co-head of YouTube, these are both just indicators of why Orabrush is the kind of brand custom built for YouTube success.

As he recently told Brand Channel, Orabrush is “the type of product you can’t sell with search, you can’t sell with display, but it’s uniquely able to sell because of the power of video’s medium. These are user-choice ads, things that people are choosing to click on.”

In the conclusion of my recent interview with CMO Jeffrey Harmon - the man behind Orabrush's ridiculous (and by "ridiculous," I mean "massively successful") YouTube channel, he shares his perspective on Kamangar's contention.

And he shares how other marketers can start tapping into the power of YouTube videos, too.

TAPPING THE POWER OF YOUTUBE: THE JEFFREY HARMON INTERVIEW (CONCLUSION)

In part three of my conversation with Orabrush CMO Jeff Harmon about the grassroots, social media efforts that Ad Age has placed among the top 10 of the last year, we learn that the popular iFart app inspired Orabrush's own iPhone app - The Bad Breath Detector.

Now in part two, he talks about how he has kept the effort alive with "Diary of a Dirty Tongue" - a series of hilarious house-made videos featuring the misadventures of an obnoxious misfit named Morgan that has been viewed 31 million times, and helped generate over $1 million in sales directly from the Orabrush YouTube channel.

I'm just going to come out and say you're going to going to get a kick out of Jeffrey Harmon, the 28-year-old CMO at Provo, Utah-based Orabrush, and the lively, behind-the-scenes story of how his little social media campaign for a product nobody had ever heard of came to inspire Ad Age to name it one of the best campaigns of 2010.

Let's just say it involves a device for scooping out the halitosis-causing germs from your mouth, a video about testing your breath; a newer series of YouTube videos featuring the misadventures of an obnoxious misfit named Morgan, called "Diaries of a Dirty Tongue," which has been viewed 31 million times, and a Facebook page about halitosis.

Earlier this month, the company even released a paid iPhone app called "The Bad Breath Detector Pro" - to compliment the free version released a few months ago.

This after 76-year-old inventor Robert Wagstaff had almost quit trying to sell his product after spending a fortune trying to market it. Then he discovered Harmon, who was just finishing up school at BYU. Harmon challenged a key assumption about online marketing, prompting "Dr. Bob" to give this kid a chance to show him how it's done.

Since the launch of the campaign - created almost entirely by Harmon and his friends without an ad agency or professional videographer in sight - Orabrush has sold over $1 million worth of its tongue brushes through its YouTube channel, called Cure Bad Breath, instead of being overtly branded to Orabrush.

And today, Google routinely flies Jeffrey out to meetings to help other brands grasp the power of YouTube video marketing.

What's more, drugstores around the world are beginning to stock the product, and now even the guy in the original halitosis video - a friend of Harmon's who performed for about $100 - has a stake in a small company that may be valued as high as $50 million.

Here's Harmon in his own words - which include some great secret strategies for video marketing and branded entertainment - as well as a bigger picture perspective on what he calls "branding in reverse."